Making sense (and, sometimes, nonsense) out of Current News, Issues, Politics

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

After Years of Decline, Murder and Crime Rise

The early 1990's saw crime and murder rates out of control. In 1993, there were more than 14 million crimes committed and nearly 25,000 murders. By 2014, the number of crimes fell to 9-1/2 million and murders were down to 14,250. Similarly, overall violent crimes fell from nearly 2 million in 1993 to just 1.2 million in 2014. Many believe that more active policing and increased traffic stops were responsible for the decline.

Now, in the last two years, crime in our major cities is rising to levels that haven't been seen in years.

While Barack Obama refuses to blame this rise on the less aggressive policing resulting from the poor treatment of cops over the incidents in Ferguson, Baltimore, and other cities, the facts are undeniable. For example, in Minneapolis, violent crime is up while traffic stops are down 30%, and arrests for violent crimes are down 30%. In Chicago, traffic stops are down 80% while murders are up nearly 70%. In Las Vegas, murders have doubled. And, more often than not, blacks are the ones dying at higher rates than whites. In Chicago, 73% of those murdered are black.

Therefore, if black lives truly matter, let the police do their jobs, and get the civil rights division of the Justice Department off their backs. The way things are now, all too many blacks are dying as a result of passive policing in our major cities, along with the hands-off attitude against blacks during traffic stops.